


can't seem to find the words (so i'll write them down instead)

by passthesaltzman



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Love Confessions, Secret Admirer, kelley and sonny being the best detectives there ever were, never thought i'd ship real people but here we are, oblivious!christen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:44:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passthesaltzman/pseuds/passthesaltzman
Summary: christen has a secret admirer.orthe one where tobin is a little shit and christen can't seem to take a hint
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Emily Sonnett, Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 210
Kudos: 709





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couldn't seem to get this idea out of my head. hope you enjoy.

If there was anyone Christen Press couldn’t stand, it was Tobin Heath.

She was just so _ annoying_. It was like she made it her mission to make Christen as exasperated as possible on any given day. Whether it be calling her annoying nicknames, or stealing her last two french fries during lunch to use as fake drumsticks, or riding her longboard through the hall and deliberately patting her on the head every time she goes by, she’s constantly on Christen’s nerves.

It doesn’t help that they were polar opposites. While Christen was neat and organized, Tobin was irresponsible and didn’t believe in folders, the type to always have loose papers sticking out of her backpack. While Christen prided herself on her appearance, Tobin was very much casual in her day to day dress, often looking as if she hadn’t brushed her hair that morning. While Christen was high strung and anxiety ridden, Tobin was almost always the pinnacle of unbothered, oftentimes putting in very little effort and still passing in roaring colors. 

She was _ infuriating_.

Currently, the bane of her existence was juggling a soccer ball while talking to Cheney _ right _ in front of her locker. She huffed as she saw the scene across the hall and marched over, pointedly attempting to ignore the girl while she put in her combination. As always, unfortunately, Tobin didn’t give her a moment of peace.

“Hey Pressy,” Tobin drawled while leaning against the locker, still juggling the soccer ball with her feet. 

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?’ Christen rolled her eyes as she finally opened her locker, eyes immediately catching on a folded paper that was _ definitely _not there yesterday when she left school.

Tobin, seeing that Christen’s eyes caught interest on something, smirked and peered into her locker, pressing her cheek against Christen’s in the process. “What is it? Is that a note?” 

Christen pushed Tobin’s face away with her hand while reaching for the note with the other, flutters of excitement filling her chest as she contemplated what this could possibly be. 

She notices immediately that it’s neatly folded and has an elegant “To Christen” scrawled on top in a fine-tipped green ink with a flowery design surrounding it. Her heart only continues to beat faster as she notices how much obvious effort someone put into this tiny note for her.

Surprisingly, Tobin stays relatively quiet as Christen opens the note with a small grin, her smile slowly increasing as she reads the mysterious note.

_ Dear Christen, _

_ I find it strange that when I look into your eyes I'm not met with an endless starry sky. The world around me doesn't freeze or turn monochrome around everyone but you. I don't see an endless sea or visions of a setting sun, no matter my determination. So how do I know it’s love if it isn't as the words I've heard all my life describe? _

_ Yet my heart still drops when you walk into the room, even when your focus is a place far off. People say it's like a flutter but this is far too heavy to use such a light word to describe such a feeling. It's painful, but I know it isn't something ominous or bad because it feels right. Yet how do I know it’s love if none of my words describe it as they should? _

_ I get it every time our eyes meet or you tilt your head and smile with your head in the clouds. I get it when you laugh to yourself or say something hardly above a whisper. When you focus so hard and let out a sigh of effort and I feel such deep affection. Yet is it alright for me to say what I feel is love when I can't even tell myself what love is? _

_ I don't think your eyes need starry skies or my stomach needs a million butterflies. Your smile doesn't need to illuminate the room and my thoughts for you don't need an anchor. Love shouldn't have an expectation and the words don't need to have a proper diction. _

_ Perhaps, if I’m lucky, I'll see it in your heart or feel it in your touch one day if you feel the same, regardless of what the world has sold me with their modern day poetry. Regardless, I promise you that no matter how hopeless I become, I will find out for myself what it means to love you wholly, even if I have to find out from loving at a distance. _

_ Love, _

_ Your Secret Admirer _

She read over it once. Twice. Three times. Trying and failing to digest the words in front of her. Suddenly, she was broken out of her daze by Tobin slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Whoa Chris, what’s got you all pink in the face?” she heard Tobin say as she tried to look over her shoulder at the neatly written note.

Christen slammed the note closed and pulled away quickly, her blush deepening as she attempted to pull herself together. “It’s, uh, nothing. Just homework stuff,” she lied quickly, not about to discuss the fact that she apparently has a secret admirer with _ Tobin Heath _ of all people. 

Tobin shrugged. “Whatever you say, Pressy,” she teased, as she dropped her longboard from her right hand and gathered her soccer ball in her left, not forgetting to knock it against Christen’s head before she rolled away down the hall. 

Usually Christen would be annoyed by the fact that the static from the soccer ball had just messed up her perfectly straight hair, or surprised that the usually burdensome Tobin let her obvious lie go so easily, but she couldn’t seem to find it in her to care about anything but the note clutched in her hand.

She had a secret admirer. Someone liked her. _ Loved her_. They wrote her a love note. A _ poetic _ love note. 

Christen felt the smile on her face become impossibly wider.

She _has_ to tell Kelley about this.

\----------

“Holy shit! They’re totally in love with you!” 

“Shh! Kelley!” Christen attempts to grab the note back and keep Kelley quiet before she gets them kicked out of the library. _ Again. _

Kelley easily dodges Christen and instead stands up, still looking in shock at the paper before her.

“‘I will find out for myself what it means to love you wholly, even if I have to find out from loving at a distance.’ Are you kidding me? Chris, they’re in so deep, holy shit.” Kelley expressed, thankfully at a much reduced volume from before.

Christen feels her cheeks become pink at the words of the letter recited back to her. “I mean, it’s possible that it could be a prank or something…” Christen feels her stomach drop at the thought. She hadn’t considered that before. What if this whole thing is just a massive joke?

“Dude, there’s no way whoever wrote this is faking. This is real shit. Real feelings. They’re obviously pining helplessly in secret because they’re afraid that you wouldn’t feel the same, but still desperately needed to tell you how they felt. Holy shit, who do you think it is?” Kelley sits back down across from her, eyes wide with intrigue into this new mystery. 

“I honestly have no idea.” And that’s true, Christen is completely at a loss at who those beautiful words that could’ve come from. She tries to think of someone she knows who is capable of pouring their heart out in such an eloquent way, but comes up completely blank.

“Well I’m calling it right now. It’s not a guy,” Kelley says with finality, giving the note another once over.

“Wait, what? What do you mean? How do you know?” 

“This may sound harsh, but it’s way too emotional and sappy for some teenage guy to have written. Think about it, can you think of a single guy in school who’s capable of writing _ that_?”

Well, she has a point.

“But that’s a _ love _ note, Kell. And there’s like, barely any gay girls in school. And they’re all basically coupled up with each other anyways, so it can’t be any of them.”

The look Kelley gave her was reminiscent of the ones she’d seen teachers give students when they’d just given an idiotic answer. 

“You can’t be serious, CP. I think both of us are examples of why you can’t base the number of gay students on the ones that are out. Just admit you’re scared it’s a girl because of your baby gay status and go.” Kelley finalized, giving Christen a raised eyebrow.

Christen sighed. Kelley read her way too easily.

“Okay, fine. I’m scared it’s a girl. And I also find it very hard to believe that a guy wrote this, although it’s not impossible. There’s a couple guys in my drama class that are sweet enough to have done something like this.” Christen points out.

“Christen, I really don’t think you’re their type, no offense,” she surmised, leaving Christen to resignedly sigh at Kelley being right once again. “C’mon, Chris. Now that we can rule out about half the school with reasonable confidence, we have a good shot of figuring out who this person could be! Our investigation skills may be a little rusty, but I believe we can solve this case, Detective Press.” Kelley flashes her a bright smile, causing Christen to laugh at the memories of her and Kelley playing detective when they were younger, solving cases such as “Who ate the last pack of animal crackers?” and “Who broke Kelley’s grandma’s vase?” (Spoiler alert, it was Kelley herself. Don’t ask.)

Christen beamed back at her and conceded with a chuckle. “Fine. Let’s solve this, O’Hara.”

\-------------------

“Ugh, this is impossible.”

Christen slumps down on the lunch table with a groan, leaving her school lunch basically untouched beside her. Kelley, seated across from her, pushed her notebook away with a huff, obviously frustrated as well.

“What are you guys even doing?” Julie asks from across the table. “We thought you were doing Chem homework, but considering,” Julie looks down at Kelley’s notebook, “Katie Nielsen and Monica Radford aren’t periodic elements, I’m guessing not.” 

Their usual lunch table had mostly filled up by now, including Julie, Alex, Emily, Ali, Lauren, Amy, Kelley, and herself. All that was missing was…

“Sup guys.” Right on cue, Tobin plops down in the seat between Lauren and Amy, slinging her arms around both in the process. 

“Hey Pressy,” Tobin added. Christen rolled her eyes as Tobin settled in the seat directly across from her, as she insisted she did every lunch period.

“Hey Tobs, you’re right on time. We were just asking Kelley and Christen why they were writing a bunch of names in Kell’s notebook.”

Tobin’s eyes flash with mischief as she quickly snatched Kelley’s notebook from across the table and scanned it quickly, taking in all of the 30 or so names Christen and Kelley had come up with as the list of suspects for writing the note. Christen, who absolutely did not want Tobin to know what they’re doing for fear of eternal teasing, immediately attempts to grab the notebook back, trying and failing to snatch it out of Tobin’s hands. 

Eventually Christen gives up and slumps back in her seat, subjected to many odd looks from her peers around the table. 

“Okay, what exactly is going on?” Alex asks, being the first to finally point out Christen’s odd behavior. “Tobin, what is that?”

Kelley immediately shares a glance with Christen to her left, and decides to beat Tobin to the answer, knowing the jig was up and they had to explain to their confused friends.

“Christen has a secret admirer.” 

“Oh shit, go CP! It was only a matter of time.” Emily chimed in from the other side of Kelley, waggling her eyebrows at an obviously embarrassed Christen.

She hears the rest of the table join in on the teasing and she burrows her face in her hands, her blush reaching the tips of her ears. Oddly, she doesn’t hear the one voice she expects to be leading the pack in the harassment, and peeks through her fingers at her, eyebrows furrowing.

Tobin is still looking at the notebook with a look that Christen can’t quite recognize. Christen, planning to confront Tobin about why she’s suddenly quiet, is cut off by Ali a few seats down. 

“So, wait, you were making a list of who you thought wrote the note and it had...girls’ names on it?” Ali asked from a few seats down, apparently having pieced together what the notebook must have on it. 

“It’s all girl names actually,” Amy chimes in, looking over Tobin’s shoulder to read the page. Tobin, who is no longer looking at the notebook and is instead looking at Christen herself, has another expression on her face Christen can’t quite read.

Christen blushes as everyone waits for confirmation from Christen about the aforementioned names. “Well, um,” Christen coughs feeling completely unprepared for their questions. “The note’s really...deep, and well, Kelley said it’s unlikely a guy could have written it and I sorta agree.”

She doesn’t mention how she secretly hopes it’s a girl, Kelley being the only one at the table who knows about her sexuality. She’s bisexual but definitely has a preference towards girls, having had plenty of favorite actresses and best friends throughout the years that she now realized in hindsight she had obvious crushes on.

She’d only really figured it out recently, a couple months ago actually. It was shortly after her mom died, resulting in a lot of late nights where she was left alone with solely her thoughts and memories of her mother. Her mother’s death wasn’t exactly a surprise, her and her family had been awaiting it for years as the terminal cancer diagnosis ate away at them, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. 

Her time after her mother passed was spent mostly reflecting on her mother’s wisdom she’d given her over the years, especially as she was dying. She remembers her mother telling her to live as her most authentic self and always embrace the extraordinary in her. Her mom loved that word, claiming that anyone can be ordinary, but it takes a lot of guts to be _ extraordinary_. Christen hadn’t always given the sentiment much thought, but leading up to her mom passing away, it quickly became a daily reminder of her mother. As those memories of her mom slowly cultivated into the realization of her sexuality, she knew in her heart her mom would’ve accepted her no matter what. 

The ultimate realization had prompted her to call Kelley, who had come out to her only a little while earlier. Within minutes, she had come over to hold Christen as she cried for hours on end, face buried in her best friend’s shoulder as she let out everything she had built up over those past few months.

Her sexuality had remained a secret since then, as even though Kelley was a chaotic evil at heart, she would never let that slip without Christen’s permission. Although she’d planned on telling the rest of her friends eventually, she had never gotten around to it, prompting the surprised reaction she sees around the table as of that moment.

“Hey! Guys can be sweet too. I told you guys about when Zach surprised me for our anniversary, right?” Julie chimed in. 

“He took you to the football field where you guys met and set up a fancy moonlit dinner, we remember,” Kelley answered. “But you haven’t read this note, guys. It’s like really romantic and sweet. It has huge repressed gay vibes too.” Kelley said with confidence, prompting more raised eyebrows around the table.

“And how would you know that, Kell?” Emily joins in, deciding to turn the teasing train on her now. 

Kelley blushes and looks down at the table and Christen can’t help but smile at Kelley’s embarrassed behavior that she can definitely relate to. Being closeted is rough sometimes. 

She knocks her shoulder against Kelley’s and decides to brave the table once and for all. “Yeah, so we think my secret admirer is probably a girl, but we have no other leads than that. We’ve been trying to figure out who it could be since study hall last period, which is why we made a list,” Christen said, pointing to the notebook still clutched in Tobin’s hands.

Tobin, who apparently had shaken off whatever trance she had been in before, smirked at Christen and slid the notebook back over to her. “It’s none of those names,” she said confidently, grabbing a chicken tender off Christen’s plate and taking a huge bite of it. 

Christen scowls at her stolen food, before grabbing the notebook back and narrowing her eyes across the table. “And how would you know, Heath?” Christen asks, annoyed that their 40 minutes of hard work was being discounted so easily.

“Just a hunch,” Tobin shrugged and leaned back in her seat with finality, irking Christen even further. How the hell would she know? It’s not like she’s an expert on poetry and expressing her feelings. Tobin was about as deep as a kiddie pool. 

“What’s wrong with the list? I think we’re covering all our bases,” Kelley chimes in, seeming actually interested in getting input. Input from Tobin, of all people. 

Christen scoffed as Tobin seemed to contemplate. “You’re going about it wrong. Most of those girls are either on the softball team or are total artsy types that bring a sketchbook with them to every class and have a septum piercing. You’re thinking more of ‘what girl is secretly gay’ rather than ‘who knows Christen enough to write something like in the note.’ If the note is as deep as you say, it must be someone who cares about you a lot.” Tobin turned her eyes directly on Christen as she voiced the last sentence, her eyes shining with something Christen once again can’t read. 

Christen feels her breath catch as she holds Tobin’s gaze, letting her words sink in all at once. She seems completely genuine with her words, and although she hated to admit it, Tobin had a point. 

“Damn, you’re so right Tobito. Chris, we’re gonna have to rethink our whole list of suspects. It has to be someone close to you,” Kelley says, knocking Christen out of the trance she had found herself in within Tobin’s stare. 

“Unless it’s a stalker type that admires from afar and has pictures of you plastered all over their room like a shrine,” Emily chimed in with a snicker. 

“Ooo, what if it’s a teacher that can’t actually reveal who they are because their love for you is illegal,” Lauren added, earning giggles and fake gagging around the table.

“Oh, what if it’s the janitor! Remember that time he gave you your keys back after he found them cleaning the library? That could’ve been all an elaborate ploy to talk to you in person after years of silently pining. A love story for the ages,” Alex proposed, joining in on the insane theories.

“Alex! He’s in his sixties!” Christen exclaimed in horror, although a smile was prevalent on her face as she did. She was glad her friends weren’t making a big deal of this whole admirer thing, even though Christen still really did want to figure out who it was. 

“Hey guys, what if it was someone at this table?” Kelley spoke up in a serious voice, prompting the group to fall silent for a brief moment before Kelley finally broke into laughter as the rest of the group followed suit.

Christen found herself joining in on the laugher, but when she found her eyes straying to Tobin in the midst of the chaos, she noted that she was once again suspiciously quiet. She saw her digging around in her bag before abruptly zipping it closed and slinging it over her shoulder.

“Hey guys, I have to go study for this, uh, thing so I’ll see you later,” she said quickly, getting on her longboard and gliding out of the room without another word, much to the dismay of the lunch monitors who had told her hundreds of times that it was a safety violation.

Her exit doesn’t elicit much reaction from the table besides a quick “since when does she study?” that gets laughs from the table before they switch topics to whatever high school gossip was going around at the moment.

Christen keeps her eyes on Tobin until she rides out of sight, feeling off but not quite sure why.

\---------

A few days later, Christen had mostly forgotten about the whole thing. Well she hadn’t, but she was less obsessed with finding the culprit than she was before. Kelley wasn’t going to give up quite so easily though. 

  
“CP, come on! You can’t give up now. We have an actual chance of figuring this out if you just help me and Sonny out a little bit,” Kelley pouted as they walked out together to the field where soccer practice would be beginning in just under 10 minutes. 

“Tell me again why Emily got in on this? Why does she care exactly?” Christen asked, confused. 

“Because you were being lame and not helping me, so I got her to be my detective buddy. Don’t be jealous, you could’ve had me all to yourself but you blew it,” Kelley snarks back playfully.

“Well excuse me for thinking my secret admirer probably doesn’t want me to know who they are, at least not yet. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a _ secret_, now would it? If they want me to know, I assume they’ll tell me.”

“Like I said Chris, LAME. But have no fear, Em and I are going to figure this out for you. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Christen rolls her eyes and laughs at Kelley’s antics, having known from years of being her friend not to question her when she’s on some sort of mission. They continue to chat as they start stretching in preparation for practice. They were just about finishing up when Christen looks around and notices just about everyone on the team had arrived already, with the exception of-

“Where’s Tobin? Coach said if she’s late again she’s going to make her do wind sprints until she hurls, and we get to watch. I _ really _ don’t want to miss that,” Kelley laughed. Christen gave another sweep of the pitch and confirmed the girl was nowhere to be seen. 

“No idea, although I wouldn’t be bothered if she didn’t show up. She’s been getting on my nerves even more than usual recently,” Christen almost rolled her eyes at just the thought of her. “Earlier, she would not shut up about that penalty I took against Rio Mesa High School in the championship freshman year. She was playing finger football with Alex and every time one of them skied it she would say, ‘Rio PK teas.’ Whatever the hell that means,” Christen huffed. 

Kelley let out a snicker. When Christen shot her a glare, she raised her hands in defense. “Okay you have to admit, it’s kinda funny.”

Christen gave her a slight shove in response, fighting to keep a smile off her face. 

Maybe it was a little funny.

“Alright girls, circle up!” Coach Ellis’s voice boomed across the pitch, causing the girls on the team to immediately gather around their coach in the center of the field. 

Once everyone had taken a knee, she began. “As you all know, we have a big qualifying game coming up against Kennedy High this Saturday. So I expect you all to give it your all at practice this week, with Friday being a rest day for you all to recharge before the big day. Today we’re going to be focusing on passing, keeping possession, and getting crosses into the box as I’ve noticed we’ve been a little sloppy the past couple of days. Sound good?” To the round of murmurs she hears in response, the coach cracks a smile. 

“Alright then, sounds like you guys need to wake up a little. How about some laps?” As the groans filter through the air, Jill catches movement out of the corner of her eye and raises her eyebrows at an out of breath Tobin trying to discreetly sit next to Mal on the far side of the circle.

“Nice of you to join us, Tobin.” Tobin winces at the voice, knowing she’d been caught. And the lack of any nickname revealed her coach wasn’t happy. 

“Oh, um, hey Jill. I was just grabbing my water bottle, but I heard everything, don’t worry,” Tobin replied as casually as she could, apparently still trying to pull off the fact that she hadn’t just got there. 

“Oh, good. So you heard how I plan to put you in goal along with Alyssa today because Ash is out sick?” Jill raised another brow at the girl. 

Tobin’s mouth fell open in shock but she attempted to recover. “Oh, uh y-yeah I heard that. Sounds good. I can totally do that.” Tobin stutters through a lie. The group giggle around her at Coach catching her in a lie and Christen finds herself snickering to herself at seeing Tobin squirm a little.

Jill sighs. “No, you won’t actually be in goal. But you will be taking an extra 5 laps around the field in addition to the 10 with the team. Get to it, Tobs.” Tobin, embarrassed at being caught out but assuaged at the nickname that Jill wasn’t actually that mad, shot her a signature smile as she stood. “You got it, Coach.”

Jill rolled her eyes good naturedly and told the rest of the team to get to running as well. Christen started out strong on her laps and let Kelley fall behind, always wanting to focus during practice, especially in the days leading up to a big game. 

Of course, that focus wouldn’t last for long.

“Sup Pressy,” Tobin breathed out between pants as she pulled up next to her. 

“Aren’t you a little busy, Heath?” Christen kept her eyes focused in front of her and fought the urge to sprint away from her. After all, she was only on lap 3 and she needed to pace herself.

“Never…too busy…to talk…to you…” Tobin gasped out as she fought to keep up with Christen, who was steadily increasing her pace subconsciously. 

Christen rolled her eyes and finally pulled away from the out of breath girl, finishing her laps in record time. As everyone finished up, Christen found herself juggling a ball between her feet and practicing her around the worlds. 

“Need some help with that move?” 

Christen groaned. Of course. 

“Nah, think I’m good.” Christen answered Tobin, successfully completing the move and smirking over at her in triumph. 

Tobin, embarrassment at earlier far gone, only beamed her signature smile. “Wow, you’re getting better at that,” Tobin noted, as she quickly rolled Christen’s ball at her feet towards herself, much to the other girl’s annoyance. “But there is one thing you haven’t quite mastered yet,” she drawled as she knocked the ball between her feet a few times.

Christen tilted her chin up in her direction and crossed her arms. “And what would that be, Heath?”

Tobin knocked the ball between her feet a few more times before looking up at the other girl and suddenly kicking the ball forward. 

Right between Christen’s legs.

Of _ fucking _course.

“Remembering to close your legs around me, Pressy,” Tobin whispered in her ear as she passed Christen, throwing her a wink before dribbling away with the ball she had just nutmegged her with.

Christen simply rolls her eyes and tries to ignore the residual warmth left by Tobin’s breath hitting her ear, proceeding to grab another ball from the bag in front of her and join Kelley for passing drills. 

—————

After a long, grueling practice, Christen was feeling well and truly exhausted. All she wanted in that moment was to get home and collapse on her bed for a nap, mentally calculating how long she could feasibly sleep with the mountain of homework she had to do by tomorrow. 

On the walk to the locker room, she laughed along with her teammates at Emily doing some viral dance that she was way too out of touch to be familiar with. She put in her locker combo as Kelley attempted to keep up with the younger freshman, looking ridiculously unrefined compared to Sonnett’s fluid moves. 

Christen’s teasing words about how Kelley was the definition of a parent trying to be “hip” with the younger generation dies on her lips as she opens her locker and catches a glimpse of green.

Another note.

Christen’s heart speeds up familiarly as her mind races. 

The note wasn’t just a one time thing? Well, she was assuming it wasn’t, but after a few days of radio silence from her “secret admirer” she figured they gave up. Plus, how did they even get the note into her gym locker? Well, if it was a girl, it wouldn’t be too difficult she supposes. But then again, why wouldn’t they just put it in her regular locker again? 

Christen realized she was frozen, simply staring at the note when Kelley sidled up next to her. “Chris, what are you- oh my god! Is that from-?”

Christen snapped out of her thoughts and immediately slapped a hand over Kelley’s mouth, eyes darting around her to make sure no one caught on to Kelley’s exclamation. 

When she was assured they had drawn no attention, she dropped her hand and shot her a look to tell her she was not in the mood for 20 teenage girls to plague her with questions she was not prepared to answer. Kelley took note and immediately lowered her volume.

“Is that from _ you know who_?” Kelley pressed, in a conspiratorial whisper. Christen simply nodded in response, eyes darting to the folded paper once again. 

When she finally drew enough courage to pull it out with a shaky hand, she spared another glance around the room and to Kelley, who was enthusiastically gesturing for her to read the note, practically vibrating with excitement. She opened it with a held breath.

_ Dear Christen, _

_ I can’t get you out of my head. _

_ It’s something I’ve never experienced. I’ve always been able to compartmentalize, to distract myself, to ignore something that’s right in front of me. Anything I didn’t want to feel, I didn’t have to. But by god, no matter how hard I try, I cannot evict you from where you’ve set up residence in my mind. _

_ At night, your shining eyes and bright smile provide the light that keeps me from slumber. That little forehead crease you get when you’re frustrated plagues me in my dreams, daring me to reach out and smooth it out, once and for all. I want to shout from the rooftops my affections and drown out your own self loathing. I don’t know how no one else sees it, how you’re harder on yourself than anyone could ever deserve. But that only reaffirms my own longing, the longing for you to love yourself as much as I do. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, but mine are a mirror, reflecting everything I see in you in a spectrum of soaring colors. _

_ Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to reflect it to the world. And maybe even you. _

_ Until then, remember just how extraordinary you are. _

_ Love, _

_ Your Secret Admirer _

Christen doesn’t know when her jaw dropped. She doesn’t know when the locker room chatter around her faded into white noise, the sound of lockers slamming and chanting drowned out by the green ink in front of her. She doesn’t even register when Kelley, ever impatient, got tired of waiting for Christen to look up and grabbed a towel to shower, claiming she was going to give Christen a moment before she had to take the note home to dust for fingerprints. 

Everything faded away, with the exception of one word, echoing in her mind.

_ Extraordinary. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first note is a beautiful piece of writing called "The Expectations of You" that I came across while doing a school project, which inspired this fic. all other notes are and will be written by me, but i wanted to put that one in there, considering i could totally imagine tobin being a hopeless gay who doesn't know what to do with her feelings and ends up writing them all down in a super eloquent way like that. 
> 
> anyways, hope you enjoyed :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even a short story can have some angst! buckle up y'all.

“I can’t believe you’d pick Tottenham over Arsenal. Like, really?” Kelley said while furiously mashing the buttons on her controller, desperately trying to get the ball upfield. 

Emily laughed from her position on the bed, eyes focused intently on the screen in front of her. “Why? Arsenal’s so overrated. Their women’s team is so much better.” 

Kelley shrugged in response. “Can’t argue with that I guess.”

Her eyes went wide as she saw a wide open Auba at the top of the 18. She hurriedly passed the ball, shot it, and consequently groaned as she saw the virtual ball sail over the crossbar. 

“Fuck, I Rio PKed it,” Kelley grumbled as she paused the game in defeat. The scoreline of 3-1 was making her moody. She _ really _ didn’t like to lose. 

Emily laughed. “What?” She put down her controller and turned to face Kelley, knowing her sore loser friend was most likely done playing. “What the hell does ‘Rio PKed it’ mean?”

Kelley sighed. “Nevermind,” she slumped back in her chair and glanced at her desk, where Christen’s first note from her secret admirer sat. Kelley had invited Emily over to her house to do some detective work after practice, but of course their plans had quickly spiraled into a competition that could only be solved by a good old fashioned game of FIFA 19. 

Emily followed her eyes to the paper. “Tell me again why Christen wouldn’t give us that other note? We’re trying to help her solve this thing.”

“She said it was ‘too personal’ for her to share it with anyone. I don’t know how anything could be too personal between us after she got super drunk last year and threw up in my hair, but apparently something is,” Kelley sighed.

“Well at least we have this one to work with. Here, pass it over to me.” Emily reached over for the note and as Kelley passed it to her, Emily whipped out a magnifying glass from her back pocket.

Kelley’s lingering disappointment from the video game immediately evaporated as she spied Emily using a tiny magnifying glass that she apparently just carried with her in her pocket. She looked at her in complete shock for a moment before laughing hysterically as Emily concentrated on the note, studying it carefully.

Kelley continues to crack up and only starts winding down after Emily shushes her several times, citing she needed to concentrate. “Dude, what are you even looking for? I already looked for clues and couldn’t find anything,” Kelley tried to reason with the other girl, wiping residual tears of laughter from her eyes.

Emily didn’t answer for a moment. She looked into her magnifying glass intently, and then as if everything clicked, she jumped off the bed, note clutched in her hand. 

“Eureka! I’ve got it!” Emily bounded over to Kelley and thrust the paper into her hand excitedly.

Kelley couldn’t seem to take Emily seriously after _ that,_ but humors her anyway and looks down at it. “What am I looking at here, Sherlock?”

Emily beamed in excitement. “Do you see how the ink is a lot darker at the beginning of words? And how it looks like it’s been gone over a couple of times on certain letters? And if you get close, can you see that some parts of a letter are a lot darker than other parts?” Emily rambled excitedly.

“Uh, yeah, I guess? But what does that have to do with anything?” Kelley asked, confused.

“Well, with my trusty magnifying glass here, I saw all of those patterns displayed quite often throughout the letter, and it indicates that the person writing is hesitating and unsure in their writing. And why would that be you may ask? Well, I suspected that the person who wrote this was trying to mask their _ actual _ handwriting by writing like in the note, but I couldn’t be sure until I saw _ this_.” Emily pointed to an “e” towards the bottom of the paper, looking expectantly down at Kelley.

Kelley glanced up towards the other girl, eyebrows furrowed. “An ‘e’? What does an ‘e’ have to do with anything?” 

Emily shook her head, pointing again towards the same spot. “Look closely. Do you see anything besides ink there?” 

Kelley squinted to where Emily pointed. She looked carefully, her eyes widening slightly when she finally caught on to what Emily was insinuating.

“Pencil,” she noted lowly, looking knowingly at her overeager friend. 

Emily nodded quickly. “Exactly, which means that whoever wrote this note wrote it first very lightly in pencil, so that they could go over it again with ink later and make it look how they wanted. And they still messed up on a couple letters, and the ink is darker because they tried to correct it. Which means that-”

“Either their handwriting sucks and they had to go through all this to make it look remotely presentable, or Christen would recognize their handwriting if they wrote normally and it would blow their cover!” Kelley cut off Emily with her eyes wide.

“Yes! Or maybe even both! And we know that one of Christen’s biggest pet peeves is untidiness, so maybe this person knew that and tried to make their handwriting more appealing to gain her approval. Even the ink color itself is a clue. Green-- why would anyone ever write in green pen? Unless…” Emily trailed off, looking expectant. 

Kelley jumped in quickly, “they knew that it was Christen’s favorite color!” Emily and Kelley were both standing at this point, invigorated at the prospect of their first lead.

Kelley turns the note over and looks at the elegant “To Christen” written at the top. “Now that I think about it, even the design around her name is specific. Christen used to do flowery designs like this all the time when we were in middle school. Our teachers all started calling her “flower girl” because her assignments were always covered in it. I bet the person who wrote this knew that too,” Kelley noted.

“Okay, so I think we’ve established that the person who wrote this knows Christen a lot better than we originally thought. And they’ve probably known her since middle school, and has maybe even had feelings for her since then. Oh, and their handwriting probably sucks.” Emily listed off all that they covered with a pleased look on her face. “Well, I think we have a pretty good profile going so far, Miss Kelley,” Emily smiled at her friend who was looking at her knowingly.

“You finally started Criminal Minds like I told you to, didn’t you?” 

Emily lit up. “Yes! I’m totally Reid in this investigation by the way. Wanna be my Derek Morgan and kick down doors for me?” She batted her eyes towards her friend, eliciting another round of laughter.

“Fuck yeah I do.”

\---------------

Christen was exhausted. These past few days of practice had been brutal, Jill and Dawn had been working them all into the ground. She was just glad it was Thursday and she’d finally get a day off after practice this afternoon.

She trudged into school, pulling up to her locker and spinning the dial on autopilot. When she pulled it open and saw another slip of paper amidst her books, she immediately felt her exhaustion melt away, replaced with pure excitement.

Ever since she had read the note that she found in her gym locker, she’d been heavily anticipating another from her secret admirer. She was wondering if it was becoming a little unhealthy, how she would get her hopes up every day that she’d find another. She thinks she may have developed an emotional attachment to this person, despite having absolutely no idea who they are. It just feels like they really know her, and the prospect that someone could find something to admire in everything that Christen would usually criticize about herself made her heart race in the best of ways. 

Opening the note, smile already firmly planted on her face, she began to read.

_ Dear Christen, _

_ I can feel my resolve melting away. _

_ Sometimes I wish it was gone. I wish I wasn’t so stubborn, I wish I could let people in, I wish I could finally, for the first time, lose control and give in to what I want. _

_ Other times, I’m glad it’s there. The distance between us is disappointing, but safe. There’s no reward, yet no risk. It’s a neutral place, where I can hide in my words and delude myself into thinking this enough for me. That even though my identity is a secret, I can take solace in knowing the feelings I’ve kept inside for so long are finally free. _

_ But the reality is, it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. Sure, I’m terrified of what would happen if you know who I am. I’ve imagined every outcome in vivid detail, most only serving to steel my resolve against this urge to confess. The disappointment I imagine playing across your face plays on loop in my mind, and it’s more than enough to sway me away every single time. _

_ But I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of the uncertainty paralyzing me into submission. I’m tired of the words being on the tip of my tongue, stinging like poison, and there’s nothing stopping me from just spitting them out already. _

_ So I’m saying fuck it. I know that’s not very eloquent, or poetic, or secret admirer-y, but it’s the best way I can describe it. _

_ Fuck it. Once and for all. _

_ I’m ready for you to know. Or at least, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. And if you think there’s any possibility of you feeling the same way, or even if you’re just curious to know who I am, meet me on the soccer field during 4th period. _

_ I’ll be waiting for you. _

_ Love, _

_ Your Secret Admirer _

Christen blinked. 

Oh. _ Oh. _

This is happening. This is happening _ now _apparently.

Well, fuck.

\---------------

“Chris, you have to go.” Ali said, her eyes widening as she looked up from reading the note.

Christen was practically vibrating with anxiety. “But what if the girls are right? What if it turns out to be some stalker? What if it actually_ is _the janitor?” 

Christen had been incessantly worrying about the upcoming meeting all day. She had hardly been able to focus in her classes, too preoccupied with the fact that in a few short hours she could be meeting the person behind these notes. The person who apparently_ loved _her. It was too much for her to grasp in such a short window of time.

As soon as Ali had sat down in their 3rd period history class, she had shoved the note into her hands, pleading for guidance. 

“Honey, we both know it’s not the janitor. And even if it was, there’s no obligation that you have to return this person’s affections. However, I do know for a fact that if you don’t go, the possibilities of what could’ve been will haunt you. So go and see who it is, and then you can make a decision-- no pressure.” Ali’s soothing words calmed Christen a bit, but she still didn’t feel even remotely prepared to face the person whose words had plagued her mind ever since she’d read them.

“I just...they obviously have this idea about me that they’ve built up in their mind, and I guess I’m just worried that I could never actually live up to their expectations, you know?” Christen bit her lip and looked down at her hands.

Ali sighed. “Chris...these letters weren’t some spur of the moment decision. It’s obvious that so much thought, effort, and _ love _ went into this because that’s indicative of how they feel about you. And feelings like that don’t develop overnight, they’ve obviously been pining over you for a quite a while to have the courage to put themselves out there like this. The last thing you should be thinking about is what _ they’ll _ think of _ you _ because I think this,” Ali held up the note, “is more than enough proof that you have nothing to worry about.” Ali gave her a nudge and Christen chuckled.

“You’re right. Why are you always right? It’s getting annoying,” Christen asked with a grin to which Ali rolled her eyes good naturedly. 

“I’m happy to be of service. The only thing I ask for in return is every single dirty detail after the fact. You hear me, Press? Every. Single. One.”

\------------

Christen’s heart was racing as she made the trek outside. Her palms were sweaty and her knees felt as if they were going to give out any second. 

She couldn’t believe this was happening. Well, she was hoping it would happen eventually, but today of all days? She couldn’t be less emotionally or physically prepared if she tried. She self-consciously pulled on the sleeves of her soccer sweatshirt and smoothed out her curly hair, hoping the humidity won’t ruin it before this interaction is over.

Yeah, she _ really _ wasn’t prepared for this. 

She carefully opened the door that led to the field and slowly walked to the center, keeping her eyes open for anyone in the vicinity. As expected, there were very few people milling about, as school was still actively in session. Usually, doing something like this during school would give her an overwhelming amount of anxiety, but she was mostly assuaged that 4th period was her study block, meaning she wasn’t missing any class for this. She briefly wonders if her secret admirer knew that and planned accordingly for her. 

Her heartbeat accelerates at the thought. 

She had finally reached the center of the field with no sign of anyone with their focus on her. She let out a shaky breath and silently cursed herself for being early, having raced here immediately after her class had let out, both out of nervousness and anticipation. 

She looked down at her watch, realizing 4th period was starting right then. She frowned, wondering if she perhaps had misinterpreted the time of the meeting. Had they meant in the middle of 4th period, rather than the beginning? Christen could feel her anxiety peaking for the millionth time today, and she pulled out the note from her back pocket to read over and make sure she was in the right place at the right time.

As she scanned the paper, she hears a throat clear behind her.

She freezes.

“Looks like you beat me out here.” She recognizes the low voice almost immediately and her eyes widen.

_ No way. _

She spins around quickly and sees brown eyes and a dazzling smile directed right at her. She feels as if she might faint.

“Evan Longwood.”

The name slips out of her mouth without her meaning to. The boy in front of her stuffed his hands into his pockets shyly, nodding at the implication.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He seemed nervous, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Um, how do you feel about that?” 

Christen blinked, only now fully taking in the burly frame of the star running back of the football team. After catching the game winning touchdown at the conference finals his freshman year, he had been the most popular kid in school by a long shot. The football team basically sucked, and the school hadn’t seen a title in years before he came along and carried the team on his back to one. He was practically hailed as a god at this school for the past couple of years, and it seemed like the entire high school population worshipped the ground he walked on.

He had also never spoken a single word to Christen in his life.

“Wow,” Christen hears herself mutter. She immediately cringes at how lame it sounded. 

Christen straightens, remembering the circumstances of why they’re there. “So, um, you’re…”

“Your secret admirer? Yeah, I am.” He gives her a charming, albeit shy, smile, and Christen feels her cheeks heat up. 

“Wow, um, no offense or anything, but you just don’t seem like the type to have written something like this,” Christen admits, sheepishly gesturing towards the note in her hand. 

Evan, seemingly expecting her to say this, gave her a knowing smile and nervously chuckled. “Yeah, I mean I usually wouldn’t think I would be capable of it either, but I guess you just brought it out of me,” he looked down at the ground as he was speaking, shrugging a little. 

Christen, who was beyond the realm of believing this was happening at this point, blushed profusely at his words.

“I didn’t even think you knew who I was,” Christen confessed. 

His eyes snap up, and she immediately meets them with their own, grounding herself in the moment. “Are you kidding?” He asks incredulously. “Of course, I know who you are. You’re Christen Press, the star striker of the soccer team. I go to all of your games. You’re beyond amazing, not to mention insanely beautiful.” He gave her a lopsided smile.

If she thought she was lightheaded before, she _ definitely _ felt as if she was going to pass out now.

“I-I um, thank you.” She could feel her blush worsening by the second, spreading throughout her cheeks and reaching the tips of her ears. She hopes he doesn’t notice how she’s already hanging onto every word.

He cocked his head. “Would you maybe want to move to the bleachers and just talk for a while?” 

She nodded and took his hand, ecstatic at the prospect of finally getting to know who her secret admirer really was. 

\-----------

Christen couldn’t keep a smile off her face as she made her way through the cafeteria. She had just left Evan after talking with him for almost an hour, in which she had reluctantly told him her lunch period was starting and she had to go. Before she left, however, he had given her a simple proposition for a date tomorrow after school. Since she didn’t have practice, she enthusiastically agreed. 

As she thought over everything that had just transpired in the past hour, she heard a loud, “Christen, what the hell!” before a tall body crashed into her.

Julie stood in front of her, her eyes wide as saucers. “Evan Longwood asked you out!”

Christen didn’t know how the hell the news had spread so quickly. She blushed at the eyes that had been drawn to them due to Julie’s exclamation.

She tried to contain the smile threatening to take over her face, nodding slightly in response. Julie squealed and grabbed her hand, dragging her to their lunch table.

“I can’t believe this! Tell me everything, Zach would only give me the bare minimum details.” Christen remembered that Zach and Evan were on the football team together, which explained how he would know about the situation. Her heart fluttered at the thought of Evan talking about her to others in the way his notes described her. 

Just as she was about to dive into the whole story, Ali slid into the seat next to her, obviously anxious to hear what had happened last period. “Chris, who was it? Who was your secret admirer?”

Julie gasped. “Wait, _ Evan _ was your secret admirer? I thought he just asked you out! Christen, spill it already!” Ali’s eyes visibly widened at the name Evan, instantly recognizing the resident football star’s name. 

“I’m trying! Okay so-”

Christen was interrupted once again by Kelley and Emily crashing into the seats across from her, looking as if they were thumb wrestling aggressively with their lunch trays in their other hands. Kelley had already spilled some of her mac and cheese and Emily’s milk carton had long since rolled under the table, but they paid it no mind as Kelley covered Emily’s thumb with her own.

“HA! I win! Now say it,” Kelley smiled smugly at her friend who huffed and plopped down at the table with her tray.

At Emily’s silence, Kelley gestured for her to get on with it, to which she audibly sighed. “Fine. You’re Becky’s favorite and I’m not. Happy?” Kelley cheered and patted her on the back condescendingly. Emily rolled her eyes.

Christen raised an eyebrow at the interaction. She really shouldn’t be surprised at their antics at this point. 

“Guys, Evan Longwood is Christen’s secret admirer!” Julie relayed excitedly, practically bouncing in her seat. Kelley’s smug smile wiped off her face as both her and Emily’s jaws dropped at the news, staring stunned at Christen and exchanging glances to each other.

Christen was feeling increasingly uncomfortable by all the attention on her, but tried to power through. 

“Chris, what? When the hell did you find that out?” Kelley asked. 

“When did she find what out?” Alex appeared alongside Lauren and Amy, as they all took their respective spots at the table. 

“Christen’s been trying to tell us how Evan Longwood asked her out and is her secret admirer for like 5 minutes now but she keeps getting interrupted. Go on Chris, we’re all dying to know,” Ali answered.

“EVAN LONGWOOD?” Alex and Amy yelled out simultaneously, while Lauren seemed stunned as well. 

“Yes! I’ve been trying to tell the story, but I guess it would’ve been smarter to wait for everyone first. Is everyone here yet?” Christen asked as she looked around at her peers, feeling like someone was missing.

“Tobin’s not here, but she wasn’t in last period either. I saw her earlier, but I think she might’ve gone home sick or something. She looked really pale and was shaking the whole ride to school this morning. She said she was fine, but you know Tobin, she never likes to admit when something’s wrong,” Lauren answered. “But don’t worry, we’ll tell her everything later. Now get on with it!” 

Christen relayed everything that had happened that day, from receiving the note in her locker this morning to the date she was just been asked on a mere 20 minutes ago. She reminisced about their long talk on the bleachers and how he told her how he had been crushing on her all year, but was too scared to say anything to her because he thought she wouldn’t like him, hence the anonymous notes. Julie, Alex, and Amy were cooing over how sweet he was through the whole story, while Ali and Lauren had a small smile on their face from seeing Christen so happy. Emily and Kelley, however, weren’t quite convinced.

“Wait a minute, what about the note you got in your gym locker a few days ago? He didn’t go in the girls’ locker room and put it in there himself, did he?” Kelley questioned.

“Oh yeah, I asked him about that because I thought it was odd too. He seemed caught off guard, but explained that he had asked his friend that was a girl to slip it in my locker for him. He wouldn’t tell me who though, just that she’s on the soccer team too.” Christen shrugged. 

Emily furrowed her eyebrows. “Doesn’t that seem a little weird though? That he would go through all that just to get it in your gym locker? Why wouldn’t he just put it in your regular locker again?” 

Kelley joined in. “Yeah, and what happened to your secret admirer most likely being a girl? No offense or anything, but Evan Longwood is the last person I’d peg to be a sappy romantic.” 

Christen was surprised at their skepticism. “I mean, I would’ve never guessed this either, but I suppose it was a little naive to think an entire gender was incapable of it. Plus, this is a lesson to not judge a book by its cover I guess.” 

Emily and Kelley seem unsatisfied with the answer but nod anyway. Christen is suddenly pulled away in conversation with Julie, who’s raving about all the double dates they could go on in the future, and how Evan and her could even join in on her and Zach’s couple game nights they host ever Wednesday. 

While Christen was distracted, Kelley turned Emily towards her, who seemed more than a little bummed that their investigation was essentially over before it had even started. 

“Something’s not right about this,” Kelley whispered.

“I think so too, but you heard her. He’s the one that showed up. The result may be incredibly boring, but what can we do about it?” Emily sighed.

Kelley shook her head determinedly. “No, something is seriously off. Remember our talk about the handwriting? I seriously doubt Christen would recognize his, since they barely know each other, so why would he disguise it? And remember when you said the secret admirer probably has known her since middle school? Evan moved here freshman year from Florida, he couldn’t have possibly known that flower girl thing about Christen. The profile is solid, but Evan just doesn’t fit it. Something’s not adding up.” 

Emily still seemed unsure. “I guess, but what if it’s just a coincidence? What if we’re just being skeptical because the whole mystery ended up being like a boring heterosexual romcom with the star football player being unexpectedly sweet and sensitive in a way of glorifying men in a cliché and overdone way?” Emily rambled. 

She mentally raised an eyebrow at the disdain with which Emily had referred to straight romance, but decided to just stash the information away and push forward. “Yeah, but haven’t you ever heard that coincidence is only a connection that remains unseen? What if our hunch is right and we just let Christen be stuck in that boring heterosexual romcom forever when we could’ve done something to stop it!” 

Kelley pleaded with her eyes for Emily to go along with it, as she wasn’t ready for their investigation to end either. She really did love spending time with the other girl, and their detective trysts were just another excuse to do it. Plus, there really was something off about the whole situation, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Emily sighed in defeat. “Fine, but where do we even start?” 

Kelley grinned widely and Emily cracked a smile in return. She glances over to make sure Christen’s attention was still elsewhere and leans closer to the other girl. “Okay so Evan claims that a girl on the soccer team planted that second note in her locker, but I was with her before practice that day. She put her stuff in her locker and definitely would’ve seen it if it was put there before practice started. Which means, the note had to have been slipped in between the period of 10 minutes before practice starting and right after it ended, so anyone that was there in that window of time is a potential suspect. I say we question all the girls on the team and see if they saw anything. If Evan is telling the truth and it’s someone on the soccer team, we should eventually find the perpetrator, since they have really no reason to hide their identity.” 

Emily nodded, trying to keep up. “Okay, but even if we do find out who put the note in Christen’s locker, that still leads us to Evan being the secret admirer. What’s your angle on all this?” 

“I know, you’re right, but I just have a hunch that he’s lying. If we find the person who put the note in the locker, maybe we can get more information. I mean, there has to be a reason he won’t tell Christen who slipped it in there, right? And even if we find out that no one on the team did, that just proves once again that there’s something he’s not being truthful about. I just...I have a feeling this could blow the case wide open if we get to the bottom of it,” Kelley paused. “So what do you say, Detective Sonny? You in?”

Emily was silent for several moments, and Kelley feared she might’ve changed her mind about the whole thing. The silence continues until she sees her friend slowly break out into her signature grin. “Fuck yeah I am.” 

Kelley beams at her and they immediately lay out a plan, more determined than ever to find out what was really going on.

\-----------

Christen walked out on the soccer field in preparation for practice, expecting to be the first one out there. To her surprise, she saw Tobin surrounded by balls, taking shots from the top of the eighteen. 

Christen thought she was sick, but was glad to see she was feeling better. They had a game in two days and it was nice to know that they wouldn’t be losing her, as she was one of their biggest playmakers on the team.

As relieved as she was though, when she saw a ball sail over the crossbar, Christen wasn’t going to pass up the chance to give Tobin a taste of her own medicine. 

“Now who’s Rio PKed it, huh?” She yelled out with a smile on her face, in too good of a mood to care that she was willingly engaging in banter with Tobin.

Tobin didn’t even glance in her direction as she lined up for another shot, this one pinging off the far post and bouncing away. Christen furrowed her brows at the lack of reaction.

She tried again. “So, why exactly is it that you’re early for practice for the first time ever, Heath? Should I tell Satan that hell’s frozen over?” 

Tobin, who was just a few feet in front of her at this point and should definitely be able to hear her, ignored her once again. She lined up for a final shot, this one sailing far wide. Tobin jogged after it in the opposite direction of the other girl, never sparing her a glance.

Christen was a little confused at this point, as Tobin never refused an opportunity to talk to her, especially in the rare occasions when Christen was willing to initiate it. She decides to shrug it off, boiling it down to the other girl still feeling ill from that morning.

More players began to filter on the field as time went on and they all seemed to have gotten wind of the Evan and Christen debacle at that point. Most were semi-casual about it, giving her knowing smiles and pats on the back. A few though, wanted to hear every detail.

“Wait so he wrote you those sweet letters? Girl, marry him already!” Sam’s eyes were wide and she was bouncing up and down with energy.

Rose chimed in. “Not to mention he has practically half the school vying for his affections, but he only wants you. That has to be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Mal nodded. “I can confirm, I’m only a freshman but almost every girl I know thinks he’s super hot and wants to date him. You better watch your back, Chris.” 

Christen blushed at her younger teammates exclamations, shooing them away as she finished tying her cleats, finally ready to warm-up. With everyone she’s told about Evan, she was realizing how surreal this experience really was and becoming increasingly excited at their upcoming date tomorrow afternoon. He hadn’t told her where they’d be going, citing that he needed to maintain some mystery now that the cat was officially out of the bag. Christen smiled to herself as she contemplated where he could possibly be taking her.

She was startled out of her daydream by a loud crash next to her. Tobin had slammed her soccer bag to the ground and was now rustling through it aggressively to pull out her shin guards. Christen and a few others stared as she forcefully jammed them into her socks and stalked away. Christen met the eyes of her teammates, silently asking if anyone knew what was wrong with her. They all shrugged and continued stretching, trying to ignore the scene of Tobin haphazardly kicking every ball in her path in a different direction in an obvious act of frustration.

When Jill called them to take a knee around her and give them a rousing speech about the game on Saturday, Tobin made sure to sit far away from her teammates. Christen noted that she didn’t once look up at anyone, keeping her gaze locked firmly on the grass beneath her. Christen, like her teammates, continually shot hesitant glances at each other throughout the talk, feeling extremely uneasy at the tension in the air.

As Coach released them to passing drills, Christen saw Amy and Lauren whispering to each other in front of her, and took the opportunity to hopefully gain some insight. 

“Hey, what’s going on with...” Christen cocked her head toward the girl slightly in front of her, who had her eyebrows furrowed and fists clenched as she walked to her ball.

“No idea, we didn’t even know she was coming to practice. Apparently she didn’t even go home like we thought. I went out to my car right after the lunch bell to get my Chem textbook and her's was still in her parking spot. And when I came out to practice, I tried to ask her about it, but she wouldn’t talk or look at me. I did get a glance at her eyes though, and they were super bloodshot. I’m really worried about her,” Amy said, glancing at her retreating friend’s back in concern. Lauren nodded along, obviously distressed by the situation as well. 

Christen was startled. “Bloodshot? As in like, she’d been crying?” 

Lauren nodded. “Think so. She wouldn’t get high this close to a game, at least I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t. Plus, you’ve seen her. She’s certainly upset.”

“Do you think I should talk to her?” Christen asked. Lauren and Amy exchanged a surprised glance, knowing Christen was far from Tobin’s biggest fan.

“I say we give her a little time. Tobin shuts down when she’s like this and refuses to open up. When she’s ready, I’m sure she’ll talk about it,” Amy gave Christen a consoling smile and rubbed her shoulder. Christen gave her a close-lipped smile in return and made her way over to Kelley for the drills, but not before sneaking another glance at Tobin, who was rolling the ball between her feet solemnly. Christen forced her gaze forward, willing herself to focus on drills and the upcoming game as she always did.

As practice continued, that task was becoming continually more difficult. Tobin was struggling on every drill Jill put them through. Whether it was off target crosses, sloppy finishes, or losing the ball in transition countless times, she couldn’t seem to do anything right. Everyone could tell it was getting to her, as she was becoming increasingly more frustrated as time went on. 

During the scrimmage, when the ball was tackled from her feet for the 4th time, she fell to the ground and slammed on it with her fist several times. Jill had seen enough, telling Tobin to get off the field and take a few minutes to calm down. The team watched in apprehension as they saw their usually happy-go-lucky teammate slowly gather herself off the ground and trudge towards the bleachers.

Several minutes went by before they were given a brief water break in which the team immediately fled to the benches. Christen halted for a moment, glancing between her teammates and the brunette sitting alone on the bleachers, head hung low and buried in her palms. She felt a pang in her chest at the sight and made a split second decision, walking in the opposite direction of her teammates. 

She slowly walked up to the other girl, who remained startlingly still. Christen stopped and shifted her weight between her feet, wondering just how she should go about this. 

“Hey Tobin. It’s um, it’s Christen.” she says softly. Tobin visibly tenses at the voice, but keeps her head in her hands.

Christen pushes through her apprehension and ventures on. “I, uh, was just wondering if everything’s alright? If you maybe wanted to talk about it?” 

Tobin remained still and silent, but Christen wasn’t ready to give up. “Come on Tobs, tell me what’s wrong.” Christen tested the nickname on her tongue, never having used it before.

Tobin let out a breath and a gruff, “leave me alone,” escaped her lips. Christen noted the hoarse quality of Tobin’s voice and felt another pang.

“Tobin, please, just tell me what’s wrong and maybe I can help. I can stay after practice and we can talk and-”

“I said, leave me the FUCK alone, Christen!” Tobin ripped her hands away from her face and stood up from the bleachers as she screamed at the other girl, drawing the attention of all of the players and coaches from the opposite side of the pitch. 

A deft silence fell across the field. 

Christen froze at the sight of Tobin in front of her, eyes red and angry, breathing hard. It only lasted a couple of moments before Tobin tore her gaze away and stalked to her soccer bag, not even bothering to zip it up before sprinting in the opposite direction of her coaches and teammates.

Christen could only watch, frozen, as Tobin’s figure retreated away, turning the corner and out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chap and next were originally supposed to be one, but i hit the 6000 word mark on this one and knew that wasn't gonna happen. so this story is now 4 parts! hooray, more inconsistent updating!
> 
> but really, thanks so much on the feedback on the first chapter, it really got me motivated to write more so i really appreciate it :)
> 
> also, emily and kelley's heterophobia is such a mood. i needed a detox after thanksgiving this year. t'was brutal. 
> 
> thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did someone order a 10k word chapter 4 months late??? yeah..better late than never, right?

“Furthermore, the reformulation of Newtonian mechanics was used to discover the conserved quantities expressed in Noether's theorem, which in turn states that-”

A collective sigh is released in the classroom as the sound of the phone ringing interrupted Christen’s physics teacher’s rant about applied mathematics in the context of the physical world. The woman huffed at the sound and reluctantly made her way to answer it, giving the class a much needed reprieve from the nonstop notetaking they’d been doing for 40 minutes straight.

Christen gratefully takes the free time to write in her planner, making sure to allot a substantial amount of time to study this topic before their exam next week. This was by far their toughest unit so far and she didn’t want to fall behind.

She was using her highlighters to embolden the concept to herself when she was startled by the call of her name. 

“Christen, the principal wants to see you in his office. Take your things with you.” Her teacher informed her promptly before resuming her tangent once more. 

Christen freezes, wondering what the principal could possibly want with her. She feels her anxiety mildly flare up at the possibilities but makes sure to pack her things as quickly and quietly as possible as to not disturb the class further. 

Her mind races as she exits the room and makes her way down the hall. What could she have done to warrant a trip to his office? That couldn’t mean anything good right? She doesn’t remember doing anything, but who knows? Fuck, this isn’t about her accidentally stealing her lab partner’s graphing calculator last week after biology, right? She gave it back, plus gave her a plate of brownies she’d baked in apology! But maybe that wasn’t enough? Oh god.

She was on the verge of a mild panic attack when she was suddenly blocked by a tall figure in her path. She flinches, but when she looks up at the charming smile aimed at her, her worries are momentarily replaced with a blush.

“Oh, hey!” She can’t help the smile that takes over her face at the sight of the football player in front of her. It’s only been a day since he revealed who he was to her, but she was already completely enamored by him.

“Hey, beautiful. Funny seeing you here,” Evan joked, running a hand through his hair. 

Her smile becomes impossibly wider at the sight. She opened her mouth to answer him with something equally as cute and charming, when she suddenly spotted a stickler of a hall monitor behind him, a freshman named Veronica, and her anxiety suddenly returned tenfold.

She cursed silently at the sight. “Hey uh, I really wish I could talk, but I got called to the principal’s office earlier, that’s why I’m in the hall. I don’t have a pass though, so I better make my way there before I get into more trouble than I’m already apparently in,” Christen rambled apologetically, gesturing to the girl behind him. 

The boy’s smirk only widened, confusing Christen. “That was me who called you out of class actually. I was thinking we could get our date started a little early.” 

Christen blinked owlishly for a moment, realization setting in. 

_ Oh_. 

He wants her to ditch with him. For their date.

He winked at her slyly before turning around, facing the hall monitor who had just marched up to them.

“Oh hey, Ronnie. How are you?” Evan turned on the charm to the freshman girl in front of him, whose clipboard went slack when she realized just who she was about to bust for being out without a hall pass. 

“O-oh, hi!” Veronica forgot her duties as she was faced with the boy who was practically worshipped amongst all her peers. 

“Good to see you! Did you get a haircut?” She could barely nod before he continued. “So anyway, my friend and I,” he pointed back to Christen, who gave a slight wave to the younger girl, “were just going to grab some fresh air outside for a few minutes. We were feeling a little suffocated in here. I think that’s alright, don’t you?” He flashed her a dazzling smile and Christen saw the girl’s eyes widen behind her thick glasses.

She desperately tried to gain her bearings under the charming demeanor of the older boy. “Oh, um, yeah. I guess that sounds fine.” The girl answered, nodding her head. 

“Great! I’ll see you around, okay?” Evan gave her one last grin before turning around and putting out his hand toward Christen, silently asking for her hand in his own. She hesitated briefly before ultimately grabbing it and turning to walk toward the exit and away from the freshman typing away frantically on her phone, no doubt telling her friends about the encounter she’d just had with the popular senior.

As Christen walked, her mind raced with the consequences of what she was doing. It was technically only 6th period, so she’d be missing her art history class along with the remainder of her physics class. She internally winced as she thought about how much she’d have to catch up, especially with exams coming up in the next couple of weeks.

She worried her lip between her teeth at the thought. Promptly stopping in her tracks, she turned to the boy next to her.

“So, about the date, I actually, um, have class next period, so maybe we can wait until after school for our date like we originally planned? It is only a few hours away after all.” Christen gently asked, wringing her hands in front of her like she always did when she got anxious.

Evan furrowed his eyebrows, frowning slightly. “Come on, Christen. It’s just one class and you’re, like, the smartest girl in our whole grade, I’m sure you can make it up on Monday. Plus, I already pulled out my fake secretary voice for you and everything,” he grinned. “Christen Press to the principal’s office. I repeat, Christen Press to the principal’s office,” he added in a high pitched, nasally tone, similar to the school’s office administrator’s. 

Christen slightly giggled at the ridiculous impression, feeling some of her reservations fall away. 

Maybe he was right. Maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing, like she always does. Kelley was always telling her she needed to let loose every once in a while, so why not now? 

“Ugh, fine. I’ll go, but only if you promise to _ never _ do that impression again,” she teased him.

He laughed. “Deal.” 

He took her hand again, leading her to the parking lot. As they walked, she vehemently pushed down her remaining fears and anxieties and tried to focus on her first date with arguably the cutest guy in school. The guy who just so happened to be a secret romantic and wrote her several sappy love letters pouring his heart out to her. She knows he has her best interests at heart, his writing proves that in every way.

Then it’s decided. She’ll skip and catch up on work later. She’ll be totally fine. 

Finally having worked through her inner turmoil, she looked up at the boy next to her with a renewed smile. He, however, was suddenly focused on something behind her.

“Hey, I thought you didn’t have practice today.” He looked down at her before glancing past her again. 

Christen furrowed her brows and turned to where he was looking. Her heart skipped at the sight. 

There was Tobin on the soccer field that they had fought on less than 24 hours earlier. She was surrounded by cone drills in every direction, some looking so intricate that only players with insane ball control could tackle them. Currently, though, Tobin wasn’t doing any of the drills. She was juggling the ball in the most Tobin way possible, doing nifty tricks whenever she got bored, which happened to be every few seconds. Judging by the sweat on her brow, she’d been out there for quite a while.

Christen felt a pang of sadness at the sight, still feeling guilty for what had gone down at practice the previous day. She shouldn’t have pushed, it wasn’t her place. Whatever was bothering Tobin, it was none of her business and she should’ve respected that. 

She was ashamed to admit she had rarely stopped thinking about the girl since, though. It was odd coming to school and not being greeted by Tobin doing something ridiculous to get her attention. And although she usually found it incredibly irritating, she hadn’t realized how much she missed it until it had stopped happening the past few days. 

It was a weird feeling, realizing that the routine that they’d developed in middle school, the one she thought she despised, was so ingrained in her that not going through with it felt like losing a part of herself. If nothing else, Tobin’s uncharacteristic sadness these past few days had made her realize she’d always been too harsh on the other girl, and she really did value their friendship. She made a mental note to make that clear to her when the other girl got over whatever was bothering her.

That moment, Tobin looked up and saw the couple through the fence. Christen panicked, realizing she must’ve looked like such a stalker just staring at her, and attempted to save grace by shooting her a small smile and a wave. Tobin’s features remained blank as her eyes met Christen’s for several moments before looking past her to the towering boy next to her. Christen saw the other girl’s jaw tighten and Tobin turned her back to them, dribbling the ball to the other end of the field to where she had set up a series of dummies to act as defenders. 

Christen sighed, realizing the other girl must still be upset with her from yesterday. She couldn’t really blame her, but she couldn’t wait until the other girl’s eyes would light up when they saw her like they used to. 

She turned to Evan, plastering a smile on her face. “There’s no practice, I think Tobin’s just doing some extra drills before the game tomorrow. Anyway, ready to go?”

Evan nodded with a grin and they resumed their trek to the parking lot, hand in hand. All the while, misty brown eyes followed them from afar.

\----------------

Kelley barreled into the library, scanning the stacks quickly for any sign of her blonde friend and almost knocking over the plant next to her in her distraction. She ignored the librarian’s probing glare that had been fixed on her countless times in her high school career as she continued her search, feeling her heart race with the realization of what she had just done between periods.

Sure she was usually impulsive, but it’s been a while since she’s done something _ this _ drastic.

As her heart raced with adrenaline, Kelley finally spotted her friend’s signature bun towards the back corner, but not before bumping into a group of freshmen who were on their way out. She ignored their disgruntled mumbles as she raced over to Emily’s table, plopping down with her eyes wide and her chest heaving.

“Jesus!” Emily looked up alarmed at the sudden presence at the table. She hears a distant “Shh!” from the front desk, but she pays it no mind. She’s heard it countless times before. “Where’s the fire, O’Hara?”

“You won’t believe what I just found out,” Kelley gasped out, deciding to forgo what had just happened between periods for the time being. 

“What? Did Alex and Serv break up again?” Emily leaned forward in interest, always interested in a little gossip.

“No, plus that wouldn’t be news, they do that like every few weeks,” Kelley pointed out. “I’m talking about Christen. She skipped class to go on her date with Evan. He posted an Instagram story of them at a bowling alley like an hour ago.”

Emily’s eyes widened, finally understanding why Kelley was acting so manic. “No way. Christen? Ditching? Has she ever even done that before?”  
  


“Are you kidding? We’re talking about a girl who once didn’t talk to me for three days because I made her pick us up donuts on the way to school and we ended up being five minutes late for homeroom,” Kelley said emphatically. “She never does this type of thing, but two days into dating Evan and this is what happens?” Kelley shook her head, stunned by Christen’s uncharacteristic behavior. 

Emily seemed shocked too. “Yeah, it seems odd that she’d risk getting caught ditching when we have a game so close too. If Jill found out what she was doing she’d definitely be benched for tomorrow, and I heard there’s supposed to be scouts coming.”

Kelley seemed to get more upset with every word she heard her friend say. Her eyebrows furrowed as she got up to pace around the table. “Exactly. Christen would never be this reckless when it comes to something like her future. This is just another reason why Evan is bad news for her. He’s messing with her mind, making her do stuff she wouldn’t usually do. And for what? _ Bowling_? Christen _ hates _ bowling. You would think a secret admirer would know that sort of thing, or at least think to ask before dragging her there, but of _ course _ not.” Kelley plopped back in her chair with a huff.

Emily could feel the escalating frustration in Kelley’s tone, knowing how protective she could be over her friends. She reached a hand over and lightly rested it on Kelley’s, rubbing soothing circles into her hand with her thumb. Kelley immediately zeroed in on the sensation and hesitantly flicked her eyes up at her friend across the table. 

“I get it Kell, you’re worried about her. I am too. And you think that you’re somehow failing as a friend right now, but I promise you’re not. We’re gonna figure this out, okay? Together.” Emily squeezed Kelley’s hand with her own and shot her a consoling smile. 

Hazel meets blue. A beat passes. Neither looks away for a moment before finally Kelley coughs and shifts her gaze downwards, feeling her cheeks heat up immediately.

Emily smiles at the sight, but doesn’t comment on it. 

_ Fuck_, did she look cute though. 

She straightens at the thought, suddenly back to business. “Alright, so let’s get to the bottom of this Evan thing, once and for all. Did anyone on the team that you talked to give you anything useful that could help us? I couldn’t get much, besides the fact that Rose and Mal saw an ice cream truck go by during warm ups and had to be held back by Lindsey and Sam so they wouldn’t ‘chase after it like hyperactive chihuahuas.’ Their words, not mine.” Emily clarified.

Kelley deflates slightly at her words. “No, I didn’t get much of anything either. I mean, I didn’t get to talk to Tobin because I thought she might be still messed up about whatever went down yesterday, but I doubt she’d know anything anyway. You know how short her attention span is for anything but soccer and experiments in chemistry where she gets to blow shit up.” Kelley sighs, feeling more hopeless by the second. 

Emily sees Kelley losing hope once again, and knows she needs to stop it immediately. “Wait,” she shoots out hurriedly. “We still might have something.” 

Kelley looks on in confusion as Emily pulls out her phone and taps away for a few moments, before coming upon something and sliding it over to the other girl. 

Eyes squinting, Kelley doesn’t realize what she’s looking at for a moment before her eyes narrow onto the “English 12” at the top page, followed by a list of names and numbers. Her eyes catch onto the one in the center and she looks up in disbelief. 

“Is this a picture of a gradeboo-?” Emily hastily places her hand on top of Kelley’s mouth to halt her exclamation, looking around quickly to make sure no one caught onto them. She suddenly catches the librarian’s eyes and gives an over-exaggerated smile and wave across the room. The librarian’s gaze switches between the two girls for several moments before she eventually rolls her eyes and turns away with a huff. 

She did _ not _ get paid enough to deal with those two.

Once Emily made sure that no one had caught on to what they were doing, she whispered vehemently to the other girl. “Yes, it is. But you can’t tell anyone because then I’ll get suspended for distributing classified school records and you’ll probably get suspended for seeing them and it won’t even matter that scouts are coming to the game tomorrow because we’ll both be rotting away on the bench for the rest of the season! So you have to be quiet, okay?”

Kelley nodded behind Emily’s hand, to which Emily finally sighed and removed it. Kelley leaned in conspiratorially with wide eyes. “Okay, I get it, I’ll be quiet. But no fucking way can this be real? 54%? What kind of poetic writer of passionate love notes is failing remedial English? Don’t you need to pass that class to graduate?”

“Exactly, he’s a total fraud. He’s charming Christen into believing he’s some hotshot when he’s not even going to be able to graduate if he keeps this up. We can totally bring this to Christen and expose his lying ass. So'hara: 1, asshole football player: 0.” Emily sat back, clearly satisfied with herself. 

Kelley smiled as well, but didn’t let her joy overtake her. “Okay, so we can prove Evan is a lying douchebag, but we still don’t know who the real writer of the notes is. And um, since we’re sharing information that we may have gotten through immoral means, I may also have something that can help us.” 

Kelley reached around her bag suddenly, and plopped 3 folded sheets of paper on the table in front of her, all penned with the same green scrawl.

It was Emily’s turn to be shocked. “Dude, you got the other notes? But how, I thought Christen didn’t want anyone to read them because they were too personal?”

Kelley rubbed the back of her neck nervously, a grimace on her face. “That’s where the immoral part comes in. I may or may not have...stolen them from her locker right before I came to find you.” Kelley winced, obviously ashamed of herself for betraying her friend’s trust.

Emily blinked owlishly at her friend, sensing the guilt radiating off the other girl in waves. She decides that rather than scold the girl, they might as well make use of the new evidence they have. Besides, it’d be pretty hypocritical to chew her out for something she’d obviously done as well.

“Well, we were naive to think this investigation wouldn’t require getting our hands a little dirty. Now that we have this though, this could be what we need to get Christen the _ actual _ person she’s been looking for. How about, first to crack the case gets dinner bought by the other?” 

Kelley looked up, seemingly surprised by the validation. But at the teasing grin on the other girl’s face, she laughed and grabbed one of the papers for herself. 

“Oh, you’re on, Sonny.”

\-------------

“Woo! Another W for me, babe!”

Christen forced herself to fake a smile as Evan bounded back to her, having gotten yet _another_ strike to end the game. They had just finished their 3rd round, and Christen had lost miserably on every single one. 

God, did she _ hate _ bowling. 

It wasn’t just that she was just terribly unskilled at it, it was _ everything_. The fact that you were forced to rent moldy shoes that had been worn by hundreds of other patrons, the rancid smell poorly masked by cheap shoe disinfectant. The unfortunate make-up of the ball that made it nearly impossible to grip if you were sporting long nails of any kind, which she currently was. The way the alley constantly smelled like a combination of floor wax and pizza grease. 

Speaking of pizza, Christen’s slice remained untouched in front of her. It wasn’t like she didn’t like pizza, she loved it just as much as everyone on the planet. It was just that she refused to eat unhealthier foods in the days preceding a game. She wanted to be at the top of her game every single match, and she didn’t want anything to hold her back from that. 

Evan sat in the booth next to her and slung an arm over her shoulder, seemingly having no idea how little Christen was enjoying herself. 

“So, what do you say babe? Another game? I promise I’ll go a little easier on you next time,” he teased with a grin. Christen smiled but internally winced a little at the pet name. She didn’t necessarily hate it, but it just seemed a little much for a first date.

Despite her discomfort, Christen was determined to have a good time with this boy who had proven to her time and time again with his writing how dedicated he was to this. She wanted to get to know that more sensitive side of him more, rather than the golden boy persona he’s wielded so far. 

“Actually, I was thinking maybe we could get to know each other better? Your letters make it seem like we’ve known each other forever, but I feel like I don’t know anything about you besides what everyone else does.”

Evan shrugged and grabbed a piece of pizza for the table, taking a large bite. “Sure, what do you wanna know?” He said with his mouth full. 

Christen internally cringed but soldiered on. “I guess we can start with the basics. What do you like to do for fun?” 

“Football and that’s about it. If I want to go pro I don’t have time for anything else.” 

Christen furrowed her brow slightly in confusion at his response. “Oh, I thought you did some writing on the side too. I mean, you don’t write as eloquently as you do without practice, right?” 

Evan seemed slightly lost for a moment before realization washed over his features. “Oh yeah, of course I do that. I just don’t really consider it much of a hobby because it comes to me so naturally, you know? Plus, it didn’t take much effort with a muse like you,” he said with an easy smile.

Christen blushed and looked away. He had _ such _ a way with words. 

She gained her bearings, now the most interested in this date as she had been since they arrived. “That’s so great, I wish I had a talent for it like you. Do you prefer poetry or more narrative writing?” Christen leaned forward in genuine intrigue.

Evan shifted in discomfort. “Uh, probably narrative stuff.”

“Cool! I probably prefer that too. Fiction or nonfiction?”

“Um, fiction.”

“Short stories or nov-”

“Oh hey, Tucker!” Evan cut off her line of questioning and signalled frantically toward the arcade area of the alley. Christen turned and saw one of Evan’s friends on the football team waving him over. 

Before Christen could turn back to the boy next to her, she felt him get up from the booth. “I’ll be right back, gonna play Doom with Tucker real quick. It’s kinda our thing,” he said, already walking over.

Christen blinked in surprise at her date leaving her all of a sudden. She couldn’t help but sigh at their conversation being cut short when she was finally getting to learn something about him beyond being the star football player. 

Contrary to her peers, she didn’t really care about his popularity or status as a star athlete. She just wanted to get to know the person who made her feel so much with just a few words. The person who was as in touch with their feelings as her secret admirer was, and who was unashamed in their passion. The person who supposedly _ loves _her, and who she thinks she could fall in love with too.

Why won’t he just show her that person?

Her mind strays and she suddenly glances toward the glass doors that lead outside and sees that it’s started to pour. She immediately thinks of Tobin, who was on the soccer field just a couple of hours ago with no signs of stopping. Everyone on the team knows how stubborn Tobin can be about leaving a field when she’s not happy with her performance. Or even when she _ is _ happy with her performance. She just loves a ball at her feet and she never lets any weather, rain or shine, get in the way of that. 

Usually Christen would think Tobin could handle herself, but she knows how upset she’s been the last couple of days and wouldn’t put it past her doing something irrational, like catching a cold before a big game. Christen admits, she feels pretty stupid for skipping classes with Evan now because of Jill’s zero tolerance truancy policy and how she might be benched for tomorrow’s game because of it. But if she’s benched, there’s no way she’s letting Tobin get benched because of illness too.

On a whim, Christen pulls out her phone and begins a message.

**Christen: ** _ Hey, would you happen to still be at school per chance? _

**Lauren:** _i would, per chance. what’s up?_

**Christen:** _So I may or may not have skipped earlier (don’t ask), and I saw Tobin on the field while I was leaving. Figured she’s still there even though it’s pouring._

**Lauren:** _oh, wow. not the text i was expecting tbh, but i got you. will not question it. thanks for letting me know tho. i’ll try to haul her inside somehow. _

**Lauren:** _ on a completely unrelated note, you wouldn’t happen to know where any rope is, would you? _

**Christen:** _Haha, unfortunately not. Thanks for doing this. I know I probably shouldn’t be inserting myself in her business after yesterday, but I figured if I’m benched for tomorrow we might as well have at least one of us playing. She absolutely deserves to get scouted._

**Lauren:** _seriously, don’t worry about it, chris. i know yesterday was rough, but i promise she didn’t mean what she said. she was just upset and you just happened to be in her crossfire. but thank you. for yesterday and today. tobin’s lucky to have someone like you looking after her. i know it means the world to her._

Christen felt her eyes tear up a little at the acknowledgement that Tobin didn’t actually hate her. She was embarrassed knowing that she’d thought about little else after Tobin’s outburst on the field other than reconciling with her. She’d tossed and turned last night about how many times she had dismissed the other girl in the past few years as being irritating or immature, when all she wanted in that moment was for her to return to that fun-loving version of herself. 

She’d thought about how many times she’d been in Tobin’s position as upset and angry, and how Tobin would casually text her pictures of puppies under the guise of possibly adopting one to make her feel better. How she somehow always knew when Christen was stressed during practice, and would annoy her incessantly, knowing it usually made her play better. How whenever Christen was being a little too hard on herself after games, Tobin would come over with an orange peel in her mouth to make her laugh to take her mind off of it. 

She pretended to hate it all, but in reality it was nice to not be so serious all the time. And Tobin gave her that. 

She’s realized that Tobin wasn’t any of the things she’d pegged her as in the past. She was just herself. And unapologetically so. 

She finally turned back to her phone, typing one last message with a small smile on her lips.

**Christen:** _ She means the world to me too. Good luck out there. _

\-------------------

Emily sighed in frustration as she looked over her note, grabbing for another dorito out of the bag in front of her. Her and Kelley had decided they needed some brain food as they worked, and Kelley had luckily had a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in her bag left over from lunch, which just so happened to be both of their favorite chip.

It wasn’t doing them much good now though. They had both decided that they’d each look over one note and see if they could find anything, but after almost 25 minutes of looking over the same single page of writing over and over again, they both hadn’t made any progress whatsoever. Turns out it was pretty hard to find something when you have no idea what the fuck you’re looking for. 

They probably should’ve switched papers, or at least tactics, long ago, but they were both way too stubborn to admit defeat so easily.

Emily bit into her dorito resignedly, causing the dust from the chip to dust the page in front of her. She tried to wipe away the crumbs quickly, but her eyes widened as it left a distinct smear on the page below her. 

Fuck! Christen can’t know that anyone touched these notes other than her.

Before she can completely panic though, she notices that the smear is somewhat similar to some of the ink at the bottom of the page. She hadn’t paid it a lot of attention before, but now that gave her a thought. 

“Hey, can I see your paper for a sec, Kell?” Emily said, never looking up from her page. 

“Oh, thank god. Did you find something? I was gonna go crazy if I had to look at this blankly for another minute.” Kelley excitedly passed over her paper and proceeded to watch in both amusement and anticipation as Emily pulled out her ‘trusty magnifying glass’ and began to look over the papers in front of her.

It truly never got old. 

“I’ve got it!” 

Emily frantically waved the other girl over to her side of the table. Kelley ran to her side and looked at her expectantly, wondering just how she went from having nothing to seemingly nearly cracking the case in such a short span of time.

“Well? Get on with it! I already feel stupid enough for not getting anything useful after all this time.”

“I was in the same position until a minute ago. I accidentally smeared some Dorito dust on the paper and was totally panicking, but then I realized that there was another smear on my note, right here,” she said, pointing down at the page. “And another on the other note, right here,” she pointed to a distinct spot on the other note. 

“In both cases, the green ink was smeared, not only horizontally, but also vertically. It’s somewhat splayed in all directions, although the writer tried to cover it up with white-out. They did a pretty decent job, but not good enough for my trusty magnifying glass.” Emily smiled triumphantly at the tiny tool in her hand. 

Kelley furrowed her brows in confusion, flickering her eyes between her friend and the notes. “So, uh, what does this mean exactly?”

Emily turned her smile toward her friend, as if she was just waiting for her to ask. “Well, it’s elementary, my dear Watson-- the writer of these notes is left-handed.”

Kelley’s eyes widened slightly. “Wait, what? How could you possibly know that?”

“Well, the smearing is indicative of atypical writing styles, such as those done with a left hand. It’s pretty common for people who are left-handed to smear what they write because the ink doesn’t dry quick enough for them before they move their hand for the next word, and it ends up smearing the ink. It’s probable that the person that wrote these was taking their time as they were writing, this isn’t displayed often throughout the letters because the ink was given time to dry, however toward the end of each note the person began getting impatient and writing more quickly, thus the hasty smear. As if that wasn’t enough proof, the letters are slanted in the backward, or left, direction, and certain letters are finished prematurely, as if they weren’t able to see where their letters were ending. Based on all the evidence, they _ have _ to be left-handed.”

Emily ends her rant emphatically and turns to her friend next to her, who had gone completely slackjaw in disbelief during her explanation. 

Eventually, Kelley somewhat recovered from her disbelief that her goofy teammate (who she was pretty sure before all this detective business spent almost all of her free time learning Tik Tok dances) somehow knew so much about forensic graphology, and regained her bearings enough to speak.

“Um, wow.” Kelley winced at her inability to come up with anything better, but Emily didn’t seem to mind as she continued excitedly.

“Dude, I know! And you know what this means right? Left handed people make up like, 10% of the population or something. That narrows our suspect pool insanely, not to mention our suspicions that the writer is probably a girl. We’re so close to solving this thing I can taste it. And more importantly I’m so close to getting you to buy me dinner, since you know, I’m in the lead for solving it.” Emily smirked.

“Hey, we’re not keeping score! You may have some crazy weird knowledge about handwriting for some reason, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be the loser. It’s whoever solves it completely, not the clues that lead up to it. It’s still anyone’s game, Sonnett,” Kelley retorted with a teasing smile on her lips.

“It’s totally a score system, but fine. Whatever you say, O’Hara,” Emily shot back with a laugh. “I’m just glad we made at least a little bit of progress, I don’t think I could’ve read those same words over and over again. I mean it’s really sweet and everything, but I can only interpret those metaphors so many ways, you know? Plus, I spent forever trying to figure out why they ended it so cheesy. I mean, the whole point of a secret admirer in general is cheesy, I guess, but talking about how ‘extraordinary’ she is seems too literal for what it is, especially as a closer to such a personal note. I don’t know though, maybe I’m overthinking it,” Emily says, leaning back in her chair.

Kelley, who had gone back to her side of the table, stiffened at her friend’s words, suddenly completely serious.

“Wait, did you say extraordinary?”

It was Emily’s turn to be confused. “Uh, yeah? Why?”

Kelley snatched the note up from across the table and nearly fell off her chair at the words scrawled in front of her.

_ Until then, remember just how extraordinary you are. _

Her breath caught as she suddenly flashed back to a mere few months ago, where a crying Christen was buried into her shoulder grieving her mother. The same place where Christen had confessed some of her greatest fears and insecurities to her, some of which she’d said she’d never told anyone before. 

Kelley could still hear Christen’s voice breaking as she told her about her mom and how she would always tell her to never forget how extraordinary she was. How she was afraid that without her, she’d lose everything good that her mother had ever seen in her. How she didn’t know if her sexuality would’ve changed that in her mom’s mind, and that she regretted not telling her before it was too late. 

Kelley had been so overcome with emotions by the whole thing, they’d both ended up crying in each other’s arms, but not before Kelley told her there was no way her mom would’ve ever thought of her differently and how she’d always be perfect in her mother’s eyes, no matter what. The whole thing was extremely emotional, and the two girls hadn’t talked about it since. Instead, they just had shared a renewed and unbreakable bond with each other because of it. 

Kelley was ashamed to admit she’d almost forgotten the conversation happened. That is until right now, being faced with the words that she knew meant the world to Christen.

Her face must’ve expressed her shock because Emily had moved to her side of the table and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey, what’s up? Where’d you go just now?” Emily’s soft voice infiltrated Kelley’s senses and grounded her in reality. 

“Christen’s mom…” Kelley trailed off, unsure how much she could say. Despite trusting Emily more than anything, she wanted to respect Christen’s privacy as much as possible.

“Christen told me once that her mom used to say this to her,” Kelley tentatively spoke. “And she gave me the impression that she didn’t go around telling many people about it. I honestly have no idea how anyone else could know.”

“Oh, wow. Well that changes things, doesn’t it?” Emily noted in surprise. “No wonder Christen resonates with these letters and whoever wrote them so much.”

“Honestly, it makes a lot of sense. Christen doesn’t trust people easily, but she trusted Evan right away because of the emotional connection she feels through the letters. Only thing is, the emotional connection is obviously a lot deeper than any of us originally thought, including Christen herself.” 

“You don’t think Christen knows how she feels about them? She seems pretty aware to me,” Emily noted, eying the girl next to her with intrigue.

“Well kinda, she definitely knows she likes them. I mean, who wouldn’t like the person who wrote them poetic love notes crafted carefully and specifically for them? But I don’t think she quite understands how deeply she feels. Christen still represses a lot of her own emotions from her mom’s passing and never dealt with them properly. I mean, she still played in the game we had barely a week after it happened, despite Jill giving her the excuse to miss it. And she always hated any of us showing sympathy for her and would change the subject almost immediately. The person who wrote these notes is showing her comfort in things that Christen hasn’t even emotionally acknowledged to herself, and although she may not have even consciously processed it yet, this person makes her feel safe and loved in ways no one else could. I wouldn’t be surprised if Christen even _ loved _ this person, although I sincerely doubt she’d admit that,” Kelley surmised.

Emily stared at the girl next to her through her rant, tracing the details of her face as she talked so passionately about her friend. When she finally finished, she kept her stare for a long moment before hazel eyes met her own and she immediately looked away, blushing a deep red. 

God, she can’t even _ imagine _ what she must’ve looked like in that moment. 

She cleared her throat quickly. “Has anyone ever told you how much of a bomb ass friend you are? Because damn,” Emily laughed to herself, hoping the red tint of her cheeks was rapidly fading. “And don’t get me started on your investigating skills. I guess we’re tied for that dinner now.”

Kelley decided to stay quiet about whatever had just happened between them. Mostly because she has no idea what it meant and was maybe too scared to find out. 

“Investigating? But I didn’t help the case at all. Nothing I said got us any closer to figuring out who the writer is.” Kelley scrunched her eyebrows in confusion.

“Sure you were. Detective work is just as much about knowing about the victim as you do the criminal. Not that this is an actual crime, but you get my point. I bet if you said what you just said to me to Christen, and asked her to pick one person in her life who makes her feel that way, she could tell you who it was in an instant. She might not admit it, but her heart would know,” Emily said, pointing to her chest and giving her a soft look.

Kelley flushed a little at the girl’s words, feeling as if she was talking about more than just Christen and her secret admirer. She quickly dismisses the idea though. 

All this love talk is _ really _ messing with her head.

Kelley gives her a cheeky smile. “You’re probably right. All except one thing,” she pauses. “There _ is _ a crime here. A crime...of _ passion_.” She exhaled in a dramatic fashion, slinging one hand over her forehead as if she was in a telenovela.

Emily lets out a brief snort at that, rolling her eyes at the girl nexts to her. She gives her a slight shove in mock annoyance and they both burst into giggles. 

When it finally dies down, Emily checks her watch and sees that it was nearly 3 o’clock. “We better get out of here and put these letters back in Chris’s locker before the janitors start their rounds in the hallways. The less witnesses, the better. Plus, Mrs. Hitchcock has been giving us a death glare for at least 10 minutes now. We should dip before she starts plotting our murders and this town loses its two best detectives to put on the case.” 

It was Kelley’s turn to let out a snort. “Please, as if she’s not _ already _ plotting our murders.”

\----------

The girls make their way down the hall, laughing to each other about something that had happened at practice the other day. 

“I just can’t believe Rose and Sammy made a whole secret language based on Harry Potter, just to get a leg up during scrimmages. Those two are way too obsessed with that shit,” Kelley piped up, letting out a mix of a scoff and laugh at the memory.

“Hey, at least it’s a step up from their previous obsession with Shrek the Musical. Plus, it didn’t do them much good during scrimmages. At one point, Sam yelled out ‘Apparate the horcrux through Diagon Alley!’ as a way of calling for the ball and Rose laughed so hard she collapsed to the ground and got scored on,” Emily chimed in, in defense of her fellow younger teammates. 

“God, those two are something else,” Kelley laughed, scanning the lockers along the wall for the one she was looking for. “Ah, there’s Christen’s locker.” Kelley pointed and the two made their way over to it. 

“Okay, so what’s the combo-” Emily started to say before Kelley simply pulled the contraption open. Her eyebrows lifted toward her hairline as she looked at the other girl strangely. “How did you do that?”

Kelley shrugged. “It was unlocked when I first tried to open it earlier too. Thank god because if it wasn’t, I would’ve had to go looking in our text thread for the combo that Christen said to use only for emergencies, and that would’ve felt way too dirty,” Kelley said, seemingly not understanding her friend’s shock.

Emily shook her head, baffled. “Kell, these lockers lock automatically, there’s no way to keep it unlocked like that. Plus, do you really think Christen would just leave her locker like that on purpose?”

Kelley’s mouth formed an o-shape, finally understanding what her friend was insinuating. Her gaze shifted to the locker, puzzled. “Oh, then how the hell did I open it? Do I just have the magic touch or something? You know, that must be it. I’ve been told in the past my hands are capable of incredible things,” Kelley teased, giving the girl next to her a wink.

Emily rolled her eyes but quickly moved in front of the other girl, hoping to hide her quickly reddening cheeks. 

God help her.

Emily immediately shakes her head of the less than appropriate thoughts filtering through her mind, and begins to observe the locker door in front of her. Her eyes immediately catches on something and she smirks in triumph.

“You know, as much as I don’t doubt that, I don’t think your hands are what’s responsible for this one, Kell,” Emily said as she grabbed the object and turned around, presenting it to the other girl. 

Kelley squinted. “A pencil?”

“Yup, it was jammed in there to disable the locking mechanism of the locker. The person who wrote the note must’ve rigged it for whatever reason. It could also explain how Evan knew about meeting Christen on the field to “reveal” his identity to her. He opened her locker and read the third note, realizing he could take all the credit for himself if he just met Christen first.”

Kelley blinked rapidly, shocked at how easily her friend deduced all this just from a pencil. “Do I even wanna know how you know so much about rigging lockers?”

“Nope, all you need to know is that you’ll be buying me dinner soon,” Emily cockily said with a smirk, tossing the pencil in her hand to the other girl. Kelley caught the pencil, although barely, as she was way too fixated on the look Emily was currently giving her. 

The blonde turned around to place the notes safely back in the locker, while Kelley absent-mindedly looked at the dark blue pencil in her hands. Her eyes flew open widely as she immediately recognized where it was from. 

“Wait a minu-” 

Kelley was immediately cut off by Emily quickly shutting the locker and barreling over to the brunette, eyes wide. Kelley looked up and saw Emily pointing down the hall to two people, completely drenched and their shoes squeaking on the floor with every step. 

The two girls recognized the figures just as the other pair waved at them. 

“Hey, if it isn’t the dynamic duo! What are you guys doing at school so late?” Lauren called out and she walked steadily towards them. Tobin remained behind her friend, giving them a slight wave with the hand not holding a soccer ball to her hip. 

Kelley keeps her eyes on Tobin, narrowing them slightly as Emily engages Lauren in conversation. “Two things. First, we could ask you two the same question, and second, why the hell are you two soaking wet?” 

The two drenched girls exchanged a look and Tobin shrugs, looking tiny and meek in the wet athletic clothes sticking to her body. Kelley noted that her eyes were bloodshot and her shoulders were hunched, seemingly trying to make herself as small as possible during this exchange.

Lauren turned back to the other girls. “We were just on the field getting some extra prep in for the game tomorrow and it started to pour. Speaking of, it looks like it’s finally started to let up, so I might as well get the car now before it starts up again when we’re finally starting to dry. Tobs, can I get your keys and you can get your stuff from your locker while I pull the car around?” She asked with a hand outstretched. 

Tobin nodded and dug into her pockets, producing a lanyard with a few keys attached. Lauren grabbed it with a nod and promptly made her exit, shouting her goodbyes and promises of seeing them tomorrow to the other girls as she left. 

Tobin, obviously not feeling much up to social interaction right now, awkwardly made her way over to her locker. Kelley and Emily exchanged a few questioning glances, while Tobin absentmindedly fiddled with the lock in front of her. The girl’s outburst at practice was fresh in all of their minds, and the uncertainty in whether to address it or not was proving unsettling for all girls involved.

Suddenly, much to everyone’s surprise, Tobin broke the silence. 

“I’m sorry for what happened yesterday,” she mumbled, eyes aimed firmly on the ground. “I didn’t want things to go down like that and I’m embarrassed they did. If you could extend my apology to the rest of the team for me so there’s no awkward vibes before the game tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah, sure, of course we could do that. Do you want us to, uh, tell Christen too?” Emily asked hesitantly.

Tobin tensed slightly at the name, but quickly shifted her behavior to seem more aloof. “Um, nah it’s alright. I’ve already planned to personally apologize to her, so we’re all good.” Tobin said, suddenly seemingly indifferent to the situation. 

Emily sensed the attitude change in Tobin quickly and was reassured at seeing some of the usual Tobin again. The playful side had yet to return, but the cool headed suave with which she behaved was radiating off her in waves as she twisted her locker open with ease.

Reaffirmed by the familiar behavior, Emily figured this was a good time to finally ask if she’d seen anything the day the second note was put in Christen’s gym locker. She figured it was a longshot as no one else on the team was any help, but they might as well cover all their bases. 

“Hey Tobin, we’ve been asking the whole team about something but haven’t gotten a chance to ask you until now. So, do you remember seeing anyone odd in the locker room before practice on Monday? Maybe someone who could’ve slipped something into Christen’s locker, perhaps?”

Tobin’s austere attitude left as quickly as it had appeared, and she froze at the words she heard coming from behind her. At the prolonged silence from the question, Tobin cleared her throat and attempted to recover. 

“Monday you said? Um, I don’t think so. I was out on the field with everyone else, so I’m not sure I could’ve seen anything.” Tobin said, trying to keep her voice level as she kept her eyes firmly on the locker in front of her. 

Emily was slightly confused at the odd behavior but soldiered on. “Oh, it’s just you were a few minutes late that day, so I thought maybe you could’ve seen something.”

“O-oh yeah,” Tobin cleared her throat again. “I was late because I was talking to my teacher after class and then I changed in the school bathroom to save time. I never went in the locker room before practice. So I couldn’t have seen anything. Sorry,” Tobin said regrettably.

Kelley’s eyebrows lifted at the statement as she subtly scrutinized the girl in front of her.

Emily sighed, discouraged that one of their only real leads had turned out to be a dead-end. “It’s all good. We’re just still trying to figure out who Christen’s secret admirer could be.”

Tobin finally halted once more in her mindless rummaging in her locker, turning to the girls behind her with her eyebrows furrowed.

“But I, uh, thought that guy Evan was her secret admirer,” Tobin trailed off, noticeably confused. 

Emily gave the girl a look. “Oh, please. Weren’t you the one that said the other day that the notes obviously had to be from someone who knew and cared about her a lot? Call us crazy but Evan doesn’t scream empathetic, passionate lover to me, not to mention that he’d never even talked to her until a couple of days ago.” Emily said, finding no problem with divulging what her and Kelley had been thinking the whole week. 

Tobin flushed slightly at the other girl’s words, a slight smile forming on her lips while her eyebrows still contorted in wonder. “Yeah but....you guys really think he’s not the one?”

“Of course not. The person who wrote those notes had to be someone that knew Christen as well as she knew herself, if not better. I bet Christen herself knows deep down Evan’s not the one, she just hasn’t realized it yet.” Emily said, nudging the girl next to her who had been suspiciously quiet the whole conversation. Kelley snapped back to reality.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that Evan isn’t the writer. I just feel horrible for whoever actually wrote them though. They must be having a hard time seeing the girl they love be with someone else who stole their words and assumed their identity. Especially when Christen is obviously in deep with her _ actual _ secret admirer. I can’t imagine how hard that would be,” Kelley surmised with a solemn look on her face. 

Tobin’s cheeks were bright pink and she seemed to be at a loss for words. Luckily for her, a muffled car horn suddenly echoed from outside and snapped her out of her daze.

“Oh, that’s Cheney, I don’t want to make her wait. But I’ll see you guys tomorrow for the game. See you then,” Tobin said as she quickly made her exit, waving and disappearing out the door. 

Emily echoed her goodbyes but Kelley remained inquisitive as she watched the girl leave. The blonde turned back to the girl next to her, confused as to Kelley’s odd behavior the past few minutes.

“Dude, what’s up? If I didn’t know any better I’d say steam was about to come out of your ears from you thinking too hard.”

Kelley didn’t answer. Instead, she quickly looked in either direction down the hall and made a beeline toward the locker Tobin had closed not even a minute earlier. As Emily had been distracting the other girl with her questioning, Kelley had made sure to note each of the numbers Tobin had stopped on for the combination lock. 

She began to twist the lock while Emily stared dumbfounded. “Woah, what are you doing? Just because you already broke into one locker today doesn’t mean we should make it two, O’Hara.”

“Tobin was lying,” Kelley finally said, intently focused on spinning the dial in front of her. 

“Wait, what are you talking about? Lied about what?” Emily asked, unable to process everything happening at the moment.

“About where she was before practice on Monday. She has a free period at the end of the day on Mondays, so talking to a teacher ‘after class’ wouldn’t have made her late for a practice happening over an hour later. Which begs the question, why would she lie?” Kelley finally opened the locker in front of her and smiled to her friend in triumph. 

Emily still wasn’t following. “Okay, it’s a little weird that she would lie, but there’s a lot of reasonable explanations. And how does that information lead us into breaking into her locker? I think we’ve already broken enough school regulations for one day.”

Kelley ignored the question and instead began shifting through the heap of loose papers piled high in front of her. “Did you see what Tobin did right before she opened her locker?”

“What? You know, I think you’re taking this Sherlock thing a little seriously by being as cryptic as possible. And answer my question, why are we breaking into our teammate’s locker and going through her stuff?”

“She shifted the ball she was holding to her right side, so that she could open the locker with her _ left _ hand.” Kelley gave the girl next to her a pointed look.

Emily’s eyes widened as she finally began to catch on. “Wait, you don’t think…”

“And did you see her lanyard when she handed her keys to Cheney? It was covered in flowers. Flowers that were very similar to the ones drawn on Christen’s notes, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it did remind me of Christen being called ‘flower girl’ in middle school. I always remembered it as teachers inventing the nickname, but I remember now, it wasn’t them. It was someone else, a girl who knew for a fact that Christen hated the nickname and used it to get her attention and annoy her incessantly. The nickname that soon was abandoned for ‘Pressy’ when we all got to high school.” 

Emily couldn’t believe what her friend was insinuating. “Okay I admit that’s weird, but that doesn’t mean that-”

Kelley continued. “And that got me thinking, who do we know that has arguably the worst handwriting ever known to mankind? Who do we know that hasn’t ever expressed any semblance of romantic interest in anyone since Christen moved here from California 6 years ago? Who do we know that couldn’t care less about recognition, but constantly seeks out Christen’s attention in every situation?”

“Wait, holy shit-”

“Who do we know that has been acting like a little schoolboy with a crush for years by getting on Christen’s nerves all the time? Who do we know that has been strangely distraught ever since Evan came forward as the fake secret admirer? Who do we know whose cheeks were practically on fire less than five minutes ago when we proposed the thought of Christen loving her real secret admirer back?” 

Emily was officially at a loss for words at everything she was hearing. There’s no way it was right in front of their faces the whole time, was it?

“Not to mention there’s an old book of poems in here, a pack of green pens, and a quote from Emily Dickinson taped to the wall, AKA the woman who was forced to keep quiet about her romantic feelings for another woman and coped by writing her feelings down in elegant poems and letters,” Kelley surmised with a quick glance around the locker. She suddenly spotted a glimpse of blue out of the corner of her eye and knew she’d found what she’d been looking for.

“Aha! Here it is. I knew I wasn’t crazy.” Kelley said in excitement, grabbing the item and immediately turning to face the gaping blonde next to her. 

“This is a recruitment packet that I saw Tobin receive from a scout from UNC after a game a couple of weeks ago, complete with UNC stickers, buttons, pens, and, most importantly, _ pencils _inside of it. Specifically, pencils that look suspiciously like the one that was jammed into the locking mechanism of Christen’s locker.” Kelley opened the envelope and flourished a pack of identical pencils along the sole one that had been clutched in her hand since she’d begun. 

“Considering this, her extensive history with Christen, and her perfectly matching the profile we’ve developed throughout all of this, I’d say we’ve found the perpetrator, Watson.” Kelley concluded with a triumphant smile. 

Emily was beyond herself at this point and let out a laugh of disbelief. “Holy shit. It’s Tobin. Tobin is Christen’s secret admirer.” 

“Yep, I’d say so. To be fair, the evidence is all circumstantial and wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but it’s good enough for me. Plus, we really should’ve suspected her sooner. I mean, Tobin’s whole vibe just screams closeted gay,” Kelley admitted. 

Emily chuckled. “Now that I think about it, we definitely should’ve known. Once, I saw Tobin hide Christen’s shirt from her after practice just so that she’d angrily tell her off in just her bra. That’s basically the closeted gay version of pulling a girl’s pigtails on the playground in elementary school.” 

The girls burst out laughing at that, riding off the high of finally making sense of the whole situation. 

Kelley was the first to recover from the laughing fit. “Okay, so since Tobin has resigned herself to keeping her undying love a secret and Christen is as hopelessly oblivious as ever, it’s up to us to fix their mess. We need to come up with a plan.”

“For sure, but we should probably get out of here first. You know, before anyone finds us having broken into a locker and we’ll be forced to explain that we did it in the name of young love and all that.”

“Sounds good. How about we talk about it over dinner since, you know, you’ll be paying for it,” Kelley replied with a wink, closing the aforementioned locker and strutting past her to the exit. 

Emily rolled her eyes but didn’t argue, relishing the chance to play matchmaker for her two clueless friends who she knew would be absolutely perfect for each other if they would just stop being babies about the whole situation. Not only that, but she’d be crazy to turn down an opportunity to spend more time with the hazel-eyed brunette who she’d grown so close with the past few days. 

Emily turned and let out a mock sigh of annoyance. “Ugh, fine. But you’re driving, O’Hara.” 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Watson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, sorry again about this coming out so late. school was kicking my ass for a while and then i finally got better and more motivated and then quarantine washed that all away again. i hope u guys enjoyed this longgggg chapter though! i know there wasn't much tobin and christen in it but i needed this chapter to set up for everything happening next. i hope you guys enjoyed anyway, and i promise the last chapter won't take so long next time.
> 
> until then, pls stay safe and healthy!! 
> 
> p.s. thank u guys for all ur comments, they make me so happy and have motivated me more than anything to finally get this out. <3 love u all


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